“Caroline?” a whisper and a knock interrupts
my slumber for the night. I look up the clock; it is only a quarter after
midnight. I groan, giving out a hint that I am aware of her calling. The door
opens, “Are you awake?”
I let out a soft giggle, “Barely.” Sitting up
on bed, I rest my head on the headboard. She climbs up the bed, lying beside
me. “You’re home late,” I sleepily utter.
She sighs out, “Remember when Kol mentioned a
fine dining restaurant that his family liked?” I hum to her my agreement. “Well, we
decided to have dinner there and it seems like his family thought it was a good
idea too.” My eyes pop open and I sit up on a sitting position immediately after hearing what she said.
“Yeah, his family.”
“Who was there?” a certain curly haired British
bachelor perhaps? I mentally said to myself. I didn’t want to sound too eager
for assurance of Klaus’ presence, but I am too intrigued to sound insouciant.
“Well, the bitchy sister was there,” she
says. Rebekah. Bitchy, indeed! “I think the oldest of them, too. Finn, right?”
I nod. “Then,” she made a short pause, “you’ll never guess who else was there.”
She uses both hands to cover her humiliated
face, “Their mother. Her name is Esther.”
I exclaim, “Whoa! You met their creator? How
did it feel like?” I tease. “Was she as controlling and as monstrous like her
five offspring in which she must’ve reluctantly pushed out of her womb?” Bonnie
rolls her eyes.
“Don’t tease!” she slaps me on my arm. “It
was the most awful way that a girl could meet her boyfriend’s parent! I mean, I
have had three bottles of beer from the club, and then at the restaurant, they
served me wine! Seriously, it’s like they wanted me drunk! Anyway, I was so
embarrassing. They’re probably never going to invite me over for dinner.”
Scoffing out, “They better not. You’d
probably be the first course of the meal if they did.” She glares. “I’m
joking!” She smiles. “Obviously, you’re appetizer. You don’t have enough meat
to be first course.” I say, massaging her gawky arms to emphasize the lack of
meat in her body.
She slaps my hand away as both of us laugh at
the very cheerful exchange we just had. As our laugh dissipates, the atmosphere
quickly shifts as a gush of ghastly air hung above us. Her head held down, she
purses her lips in hopes of upholding the poker face, but I knew better than to
believe that. “Why don’t we go out tomorrow?”
“Huh?” she wonders.
I grin, “A boyfriend-free morning and
afternoon! I’m not saying you won’t see him in the evening, but I swear, it’ll
be fun. You’ll forget about recent events and you’ll figure out of a way to
redeem yourself in front of his family. What do you say?”
She nods, “I say we do it. So, what’s the
agenda for tomorrow’s boyfriend-free morning?”
“Well, I was thinking about having breakfast
at the diner at 5th with Matt. Then we’ll leave him by his
supermarket, and go to the salon for medi-pedi’s and a spa treatment. We both
need a little rejuvenation after the past few days. Too much has happened.” Too
much, referring to the vampire drama.
“And what about the afternoon?” she asks.
It took me a while to think, “Well,” I pause,
“I might need to stop by the firm to confirm with the chief editor about
something, but we’ll eat at Rousseau’s and meet with Cami. I think we need to
get to know her a bit more. She seems cool.”
She nods to me in agreement. “I think so,
too, but you know that nobody can ever replace Elena.” I look down in
disappointment. She takes my right hand, “Can we both forget about Episode 69 of your life for the moment?”
I laugh.
Elena Gilbert. She is one of our best friends
from Mystic Falls. She is always better than everyone else in most things. She is prettier, smarter, and all the guys love her. I used to be insanely jealous of her, but that was before Episode 69 of my life. In other words,
one of the most life changing factor in my life. It is one of the things that
I would never want to rehash. “I miss her,” I admit. “Episode 69 is so in the past. We’ve both moved on from that and we
both came out as better people from that experience.”
“I agree. Too bad she’s spending her summer
with Damon or we could’ve been the Charlie’s Angels all over again.” She
squeezes my hand in hers, “I guess we’ll just have to wait ‘till college starts
before getting to spend time with her.”
I roll my eyes at the mention of Damon’s name,
“Damon’s such a prude. He couldn’t even pretend to be excited for Elena that
she’s going to college. His all you’re-leaving-me-for-college desperation look
is so annoying that she had to stay with him! They’re probably making hot,
sweet sex over the swing right now. It’s disgusting,” I sigh.
A moment of silence was shared between us
before we burst into laughter. “I miss Elena so much,” I say, cuddling to
Bonnie’s sides. She wraps her arm around my back. “Maybe we should call her?”
“We can’t, remember?” she say. I tried to
recall the past for a moment that she ever said that we couldn’t call her and
couldn’t think of one. “Damon asked us to leave them alone for the summer. But
nothing’s going to stop us from seeing her one-week from now. We’ll get to see
her on graduation day. From then on,
Damon won’t get to have a say on anything else. We’ll get to keep her for our
own.”
I smile in secret, “Then maybe we’d get to
introduce her to Kol.”
Bonnie giggles, “And Klaus?”
The mention of his name rendered me
temporarily speechless. Now that it has been mentioned, my brain also recalled
the recent dream that I was having before Bonnie woke me up. He was there. He
was going on a rampage, killing every human that stood in his way. The forest
was dark and misty, as if the rain had just recently passed by.
Huge gusts of wind whisked pass his face. The
gust gave him a whiff of my scent, making him aware of my presence. He leaves
the bodies of his victims on the ground and followed my trail. I ran for my
life. His predacious eyes searching for me as I left tiny footprints along the
soil. I hear a wail. The sound made me stop running.
I remember myself breathing heavily when a
pair of hands grabbed my shoulders. I screamed. “No, no, no. Stop.” His voice
was familiar. I knew his voice so well. “Listen to me, we need to get out of
these woods, now!” It was Stefan. My eyebrows furrowed. What was Stefan doing
in my dream? “We need to leave.”
There was a blow of wind and a short, low
howl that followed right after Stefan’s appearance. I winced in fear, “What was
that?” Both of us searched our surroundings. A beastlike growl emerged from the
darkness. Our heads simultaneously moved from a direction to another as we
caught glimpses of swift movement around us. Movements that were too quick for
an average man’s eyes.
Stefan took both my shoulders in his hands
and looked at me in the eyes, “You and me, we’re going to run. Okay? It’s going
to follow us.” He pointed to the ground behind him. It was Matt and Cami. They
were both bloodied and there was a bite on both their necks, a bite with two
punctures — a vampire bite. “We need to lead it away from Matt. You’re going to
run as fast as you can. Do you understand me?” I nodded slightly and let out a
low groan. “Go, go!” I started running.
The loud rapid footsteps behind reminded me
that Stefan was still there. We scoured the whole forest, avoiding one tree
from another, but I still didn’t understand everything that was happening. Why
was Stefan there? What was running after us? I stopped on my tracks, turning to
face Stefan, “Wait, what is it?” I shouted.
He stopped from running with me and grabbed me
by my shoulders again. “It’s a werewolf! It will try to kill us, and it can!” Werewolf? Oh my God. It’s Klaus. I can talk
to him. I can convince him not to kill me. I tried shaking off Stefan’s
grip when another voice emerged from the darkness.
“Hey!” it was a man. I turned around. “What
are you two doing here?” It was Tyler McDouchey-Face. He slowly walked towards
us. I looked around, hoping to find Klaus. I
can talk to him. Tell him to stop. He’ll listen to me.
Stefan started talking, “What are you doing here?” Then all I remember was
screaming as the werewolf attacked me from the side. I breathed heavily,
struggling underneath the wolf’s muscles.
“Klaus, it’s me. It’s Caroline.” I tried to
fight back, “Stop. You don’t want to do this.” I couldn’t shake it from on top
of me. His drool was dripping on my face, and then, I knew that I couldn’t talk
my way out of the situation. “Stefan!” I shouted. I groaned out my fear and
frustration.
“Caroline!” I hear Bonnie shouting at me in
real time and shaking my whole body. “Caroline! What happened to you? You
suddenly zoned out on me and I couldn’t reel you back. What were you thinking
about?”
Letting out a sigh of frustration and relief,
I look over to my best friend. “It’s nothing.” She gave me a look, “It's just Klaus.”
She eyes me suspiciously. Obviously, I wasn’t
fooling anyone. I must’ve been gone for minutes. “So, we’re thinking about
Klaus now, aren’t we?” She banters. I roll my eyes at her. “I get it that
you like him. He’s very charming and attractive. I can’t really stop you from
dating him because you know the consequences of being around him now.
And I’m dating a charming, attractive and dangerous person too. So, if you want
to go out with him, I don’t really have a say about it.”
I look down on my fingers, “I shouldn’t.”
Her eyebrows crease in curiosity, “What’s wrong?”
I don't answer. “Care, I know I’ve had my share of insults on Klaus’
character, but I was just trying to protect you. I overplayed it, but really,
he’s not that bad. Do I still think he’s dangerous? Yes, but not much worse
than Kol ever will be. They’re both dangerous, but it wouldn’t stop anyone from being around
them. And it shouldn’t stop you.”
“Why not?”
She gives me a smile full of passion,
“Sometimes, you need a little danger in your life. Better get risky for love
rather than for something else.”
I stare back at her eyes in depth. Her words
were so sincere and full of adoration. Kol must’ve spelled her into being this in love. I’ve never seen her like
this. I smile at her, “Words of wisdom. Way to go, Bonnie Bennett!” We giggle
together.
She doesn't use the time to make a momentary
pause on our conversation and immediately hit me with a new topic at hand. “How
did Klaus tell you about the secret? Did you find out, or did he willingly
confess?”
“You mean, Kol didn’t tell you?” she shakes her
head. “I was actually on my way to the mansion for the interview, when Rebekah
attacked me from the door. You see, Katherine found out that I had vervain in
my system when I resisted her compulsion. She told the blonde and the blonde
held my neck against the nearest wall. It was quite the epic scenario actually.”
Bonnie tries to process the information. “I
don’t get it. Did you know beforehand? Or how else could you have been prepared
with the vervain? How did you even get it?”
“That’s the funny part. During Rebekah’s torture
— or I’m pretty sure she thought it as more of an interrogation — I wasn’t
aware of the existence of vampires. I knew witches were real because of you,
but I had no idea about anything else. So, while she was suffocating me and throwing
those random questions at me, I really didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even
know what vervain was, or how I was even able to obtain it as they assumed.
“My senses were pretty clouded at that time but
somebody pulled me off of Rebekah. Personally, I think it was Kol.” I pause to
watch the corner of Bonnie’s lips twitch up, “Then Katherine dragged me to a
separate room. She called Klaus and he dealt with me since. I pretended to be
oblivious of what just happened and insisted on proceeding with the interview.”
“Seriously?” she asks audibly. “Didn’t you
want an explanation to everything that was happening?”
I shrug both shoulders. “I just thought that knowing
the facts and the truth would hurt me more. It would affect me more. Being
oblivious to the truth hasn’t hurt me as much, so I thought that sticking to
that was the right thing. Besides, I didn’t want anything to disturb my
presence of mind. Knowing the reason behind the anomaly would mean getting
myself into believing the supernatural truth. I didn’t think I needed that in
life. But I had to know when Klaus revealed that he laced me with vervain.
“He laced my body, my temple with some kind of vampire resistant. I found it
disrespectful so I asked about it, and about him. That made it my business. Even if I didn’t want to be
in it, I was in it before I even knew I was. So, there was no point in blocking
the truth out of my life.”
Bonnie gives me a sympathetic smile, “You know,
the effects of vervain will wear out soon. As soon as it gets out of your
system, you won’t be resisting any more vampires. So, you have to be careful
when you talk to people. There are a number of vampires wandering along the
city; you’ll never know who you’ll bump into.”
Vampires were always such a myth to me. Now
that I am aware of their existence, I can’t really imagine protecting myself
against one. “Do I wear a garlic necklace? Or do you think that’s too flashy?”
I joke, “Bracelet then?” She chuckles. “No. I’ll just drown myself in misery
every night until the sun comes up and burns all of those monstrous creatures.”
She rolls her eyes, “Myth; as for the
nightlife, avoidable. You see, vampires are cursed to burn under the sun. Their
skin will go up into flames and they will die.” I nod. “But with a help of a
witch, they can wear a ring.” She explains in further by removing her own ring.
“The witch can cast a spell on it that could prevent them from burning.”
“How many other ways can you kill a vampire?” I ask.
Sighing out a reluctant breath, she replies,
“There are several. The sun. Fire. A wooden stake through the heart. Pulling
out of one’s heart from his chest. And, chopping off of the head works too.”
My face scrunch up in disgust, “Brutal.”
She slowly nods to my comment. “Very. But
depriving one from blood for a very long time can desiccate their bodies. That
is if you could do that without them attacking on you first, because when
they’re hungry, all that they would want is blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. One must have so much strength to
be able to resist the blood.
“And also the vervain, it could hurt them
too.” Her hands dig into her pockets, taking out a miniature zip lock with herbs in
it. To an average person’s eye, it looks like weed. “Vervain is a plant. It
grew beneath the tree that gave life to vampires, the white oak tree. When
grazed against a vampires skin,” she says, animating it by grazing the zip lock
filled vervain against my arm, “their skin will burn. These plants can be extracted.
Humans can consume the sap, but vampires won’t be able to push it down their
throats because it’ll burn the walls of their throats first.
“This is the one protection we can have
against them. It can help us resist compulsion. Just by carrying it with you
can protect you. And when you drink it, it can protect your blood. They wouldn’t
be able to drink from you then. They can kill you by hurting you some other way
though,” I wince, “But that’s not something I want to think about.”
Handing me the zip lock of vervain, she
smiles at me. I look down at the herb and almost immediately gave it back to
her, “You should keep it, it’ll protect you. Given that you are dating a
vampire, we can never be too sure.”
She pushes it back to me, “No. Kol won’t hurt
me. The Mikaelson’s had a deal with Esther, no hurting the locals. Besides, do
you really think he would hurt me even if he wanted to? He cares about me.”
“I know,” I pause, “And I’m sure he won’t
hurt you, but vampires have enemies. Vampires have enemies that are also
vampires. I would never forgive myself if one day something bad happens and you
couldn’t protect yourself because you gave me your only hand of vervain.
Besides, I’m not hanging around with other vampires. I’m sure I’m very safe.”
Nodding her agreement, she curls her fingers
around the pack of herbs. She takes in a sharp intake of breath and faces me.
“Klaus was at dinner with us tonight.”
Klaus. Him again. I really don’t want another
trip down dreamland. “Is that supposed to surprise me? He’s part of the
family.” I scoff, “He’s probably the big boss of the family.”
She made a faint giggle, “He asked me about
you.” She settles into my bed, tucking herself under the sheets. Resting her
head on the pillow, she looks up the ceiling and says, “He wants to know if
you’re okay.” I mirror her actions and lie on bed with her, eyes also on the
ceiling. “When I came in, I wasn’t sure if you needed to know, but probably
given your steamy thoughts about him, I knew you should know.”
I roll my eyes, “They weren’t steamy
thoughts. They were nightmares.” I make a momentary pause, “He turns into this
monster, a werewolf. He attacks Matt and Cami, and then he attacks me. I tried to talk to him. I told him
that he was attacking me, that I was Caroline.” I close my eyes, reliving the
moment. “He didn’t stop.” Sighing out a huge burst of breath, “I didn’t know
what to do. I was afraid,” I pause, “terrified. I thought I was finally willing
to look pass his monstrosities, but then I had this dream. And I couldn’t make
myself find him as a good person.”
I anticipate for Bonnie’s reply, but she
doesn’t say anything. I sit up and look pass my shoulder and find her eyes
shut, faintly snoring. I sigh and slump back to bed.
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